Friday, November 16, 2012

The
views expressed in this email and blog are those of the individuals whose name
is attached to the posting. They do not represent a collective position of the
WLG or the Labour Party

Dear
Comrades

This week’s
blog – number 10 - follows on from a collective sigh
of relief that we do not have to cope with President Romney, but that we still
face the cold reality of fighting international capital’s‘austerity’ onslaught. Below are some pieces
about how socialists who stood locally in the US fared and also, how they now
read their situation and the dangerous fudge that is likely to emerge from the
‘fiscal cliff’ debate.

The Labour
Representation Committee, to which Welsh Labour Grassroots is affiliated, held
its annual conference on Saturday 10 November and we provide a report below.
The practical realities of resisting austerity and taking a socialist
alternative forward were key issues at this conference and overlap with those
raised at our WLG conference two weeks earlier. Our discussion piece last week
– which has become a bit of a hit on our blog – has taken the dialogue forward
and in this week’s we explore the extent to which diverse forms of resistance
can be brought together.

Don’t forget
our regular WLG email and blog is available accessible on the web here.

Forthcoming events

Tomorrow,
Saturday, 17th November, there will be emergency demonstrations around the UK
in solidarity with the people of Gaza, including at these locations in Wales:

·Cardiff – 2.00 pm, Aneurin Bevan Statue, Queen Street

·Swansea – 2.00 pm, Castle Square

·Wrexham - 12.30 pm, Hope Street

Also tomorrow, in London, the Socialist
Educational Association and other progressive educational campaign groups are
holding a conference called ‘Picking up the Pieces after Gove’, 9.45 am –
4.00pm at Camden Centre, Camden Town Hall, Judd Street, London WC1H 9JE.

Cardiff Trades Council is organising a meeting as a follow up to
the TUC demonstration on how to come together to fight the politics and
policies of austerity. This takes place at 6.30 pm on Monday 19 November at the
Holiday Inn, Castle St Cardiff. Here is the Facebook link with the details and facility to indicate
that you are coming.

On
Tuesday 20th November, UNA Cardiff & District branch will be holding a
meeting on the theme, ‘Limits to Growth, a Global Problem?’ with Phil Kingston
(justice and peace campaigner) and Pippa
Bartolotti (Green Party). 7.00pm
at the Temple of Peace, King Edward VII Avenue, Cathays Park, Cardiff. Free entry –
all welcome. The next WLG meeting will
take place on Saturday 1st December at Swansea Civic Centre (11.00am-1.00 pm)
with Mark Seddon as guest speaker.

Left Week – Len
Arthur

Well I started this bit with the US Presidential elections but had
to cover the 14 November ETUC day of action. We have also, in the last couple
of days, seen the latest murderous Israeli onslaught against the people of
Gaza. And we’ve had the police commissioner elections – results of which are
still coming in – and the Cardiff South & Penarth by-election, where Labour
has retained the seat. We will comment on these developments in next week’s
bulletin and blog.

The US Presidential elections have to be part of a look at last
week. Coverage has been huge but via ZCommunications you may be interested in these two pieces by US socialists
on how they read their situation at the start of Obama’s second term. First, Shamus Cooke explores the ‘fiscal cliff’ debate which will present a crunch
situation for Obama and the Democrats in challenging the neo-liberal onslaught
on the US working class. Second, is by Jack Rasmus who looks at the extent of the working class vote for Obama,
indicating that, despite all the money thrown at the election by the right,
workers have the power and ability to think and act differently. Karl Rove - sometime
advisor to the last Bush and now a political consultant to Fox and the
Republicans - could not accept the reality of the results trend toward Obama
and went into meltdown, delightfully caught by the Simpsons cartoon and TV commentator Jon Stewart. Closer to home, Michael Roberts provides a Marxist look at just how deep is the US economic crisis. Finally - in German,
but click the translation button if you wish - the European Left report on the sizeable votes for socialists that stood at the
local US elections, indicating that some seismic shifts of politics are
possibly emerging from the current crisis.

Some other bits of news you may not have picked up from the usual
sources as they perhaps are not ‘new’ but certainly have not gone away. From my
CND background I’m familiar with the white poppy as the peace movement’s
alternative to the red and a number of people who saw my Facebook posting
expressed an interest so here is the background information again. Regional pay proposals
emanating from the Tories are a threat to living standards and the economy - a
point made well by a recent press briefing from Unison.

The New Economics Foundation returns to the issue of ‘peak oil’
but with a different analysis, indicating how it can put a glass ceiling on economic
recovery. Left Futuresblog updates the awful plight of the
people of Ireland under the hammer of austerity, showing that, as people like
Michael Roberts have argued, the real aim is to shift wealth from workers to
profits. The Bank of England appears to have thrown in the towel according to Duncan Weldon on the TUC’s Touchstone
blog. And finally, Michael himself has just updated his engagement with the Marxist debate about the economy which, as ever, is well worth a read.

As I write, not only have we had the news about the fixing of gas
prices, butthe financial pages of the
Guardian over recent weeks have provided
ever more evidence of just how bankrupt is the capitalist system under which we
live. To take the headlines from just one day (2 November): ‘Comet plunged into
chaos as suppliers commandeer stock’; ‘Sharp fears for future amid predictions
of $5.6bn [full year loss] slump’; ‘Thinktank says global collapse in demand
will cut UK growth’; MP [Tory chair of Treasury select committee] criticises
Bank’s [of England] ‘defective governance’ ; ‘Lloyds adds £1bn to costs of PPI
payback’: says it all really. Yes, it seems, we do need to fight capitalism!

Left roundup:Labour
Representation Committee 2012 conference

Here is LRC conference report that I have just lifted from their
latest email – see the innovative TV section with excellent debates:

Over 200 LRC members and delegates from affiliated organisations
attended the annual conference on Saturday 10 November at Conway Hall in
London. In the morning session, conference passed the National Committee statement moved by
John McDonnell MP, which set out 14 action points for the incoming National Committee to take
forward. This was followed by an impromptu speech from Tony Benn (watch John and Tony’s speeches here).

Conference voted to endorse the decision of the outgoing National
Committee to adopt Labour Briefing, after its readers voted to transfer the
magazine to the LRC. Read more here: http://www.labourbriefing.org.uk/ . The
December issue of Labour Briefing will be out shortly, with campaign news on
the NHS, abortion rights, adult social care, tackling racism in football, the
prospects for a general strike, industrial action campaigns, full reports from
LRC and Welsh Labour Grassroots AGMs, and reports from the US, Nicargua and
Europe – and much more. Take out a Labour Briefing subscription today to
receive the December issue.

And closer
to home here is Darren’s report, taken from his Facebook posting:

Really good LRC conference in London yesterday.
There was a particularly interesting panel discussion involving councillors
from Broxtowe (Notts), Preston, Hull and Islington, who spoke about their
different approaches to the cuts. The Broxtowe and Hull councillors had taken a
straightforward 'no cuts' decision and had voted against the whip in doing so;
those from Islington and Preston were trying to minimise the impact of the cuts
on the most vital services but had made cuts in some areas, including (in
Islington) redundancies. Despite the differing approaches, all impressed with
their sincerity and commitment. The conference was also attended by George
Barratt, a Barking & Dagenham councillor who has been expelled from the
party after breaking the whip over cuts and is now an independent, while a
message was read out from Kingsley Abrams, a Lambeth councillor who was
suspended after he too voted against cuts but has now reluctantly decided to
accept the whip after feeling isolated and marginalised for several months.

There are hugely important issues here about
principles, strategy and tactics that we need to discuss much more thoroughly
as a left. It’s been suggested that WLG hold a day school on local government
issues, building on the panel discussion we had at our AGM recently;
personally, I think we should try to do that early int he New Year, and invite
a couple of the councillors who spoke yesterday along and talk about their
experiences.

Russell
Elliott, who organised the Compass Wales meeting, responded to our last
discussion paper by Darren via our WLG Facebook site, and drew our attention to
a recent paper by Hilary Wainwright published in Socialist Register. Hilary uses the term
‘transformative’ to describe a process of challenging power in a capitalist
society. She argues that achieving this will require a rethinking of what a
political organisation would look like in the context of a ‘plurality of
sources of transformative power’, by which she means trade unions and the range
of social movement organisations. Her paper is of great significance to us as
socialists, relating to directly to the current crisis of capitalism, the
neo-liberal politics of austerity and the emergence of a new politics like
Syriza in Greece. Moreover, on a personal note, I have also been writing about
the same theme for the last 10 years and her paper provides an opportunity to explore
conceptual and practical synergies.

Recently,
our third and fourth discussion pieces shared some rather
abstract thoughts about challenging the hegemony and power of capitalism,
developing Gramsci’s notion of a war of position and a war of manoeuvre.In some earlier papers these ideas have been
explored more extensively by me, arguing for some new thinking about socialist
parties through ZCommunication: beyond Pilger and Monbiot and deviant mainstreaming. Essentially, I have been arguing a
key point: that to mount an effective challenge to capitalism, it is unhelpful to
continue with a dichotomy of resistance between social movements more
interested in alternative space and movements of mobilisation that challenge
power directly through collective and generalised struggle. The dichotomy leads
to a divided movement where the different forms of resistance are seen as
alternatives, and worse, one is privileged over the other. Cooperatives, for
example, are seen as ‘islands in a sea of capitalism’ just ripe for the
picking, and trade unions are seen too narrowly focussed on the interests of
members and collective agreements, as opposed to fundamental social
change.Historically, including in the later works of Marx and Engels and in the
decisions of the first four conferences of the Communist International, this
dichotomy hardly features, the differences are recognised, but are seen as part
of the same struggle. That provides a useful starting point.

First, some
terms. Hilary Wainwright uses the term ‘transformative’ to describe effectively
challenging the power of capital and I would prefer ‘transgressive contention’
but for this piece I’ll go along with Hilary. Second, I would prefer to use the
term ‘alternative space’ to describe social movements like cooperatives,
whereas Hilary uses ‘prefigurative movements’; again, I’ll go along with this.
We would both argue that we should be not be exclusively focussed on taking
state power sometime in the future as the only way to be transformative; that
it is possible to, ‘build the future in the present’through prefigurative organisations.

Hilary
Wainwright has this key sentence in her paper:

‘In effect, the problem with creating prefigurative change in
the present with a dynamic toward future change is as much about ourselves
creating new forms of self organisation in the present as about reforms through
the state.’

It is
important to explore this a little further. In both organisations of
mobilisation, like trade unions, and prefigurative organisation such as
cooperatives, there is a problem of the direction or trajectory of change.
Trade unions can lead to incorporation into capitalism, as well as mount a
transformative challenge such as a general strike. Cooperatives can be seen as
having an incorporated boundary with capitalism or Trojan horses for
privatisation, but in aggregate they can be seen as a prefigurative challenge
to capitalism both ideologically and in terms of ‘crowding out’. How, then, is
it possible to influence the direction of the trajectory of these
organisations? Hilary talks about ‘new forms of self organisation’ but I would
argue that it is possible to be more specific.

Both trade
unions and prefigurative organisations should be seen as ‘terrains of
struggle’. The dynamic and trajectory of the organisation is influenced by the
action of the members and it is here that the politics of transformation need
to be clear: it is for socialists to argue, frame and seek to lead the
strategic debate among the members. In trade unions we are familiar with rank
and file or broad left organisations, so in prefigurative organisations similar
progressive organisations should be formed. Moreover, it is possible to go
further and suggest the form of the political process that could take place to
try to ensure that the trajectory is toward transformation.

Transitional
demands and actions are the key to this process. They have a long history which
is outlined in my ‘deviant mainstreaming’ paper mentioned above, but essentially
they are intended to form a bridge between where the struggle is now, in terms
of action and consciousness, and where we would like to be in terms of
transformation. To achieve this, the debate needs to be framed by asking the
question as to what can be done to transform capitalism? So, for example,
demanding that we do not pay for the bankers’ crisis legitimates both the
struggle against austerity politics and alternative answers, involving the
control and redistribution of wealth to the working class. By establishing
cooperative control – such as at Tower colliery – the management is elected and
the full product or revenue of the organisation is under the control of the
workers, demonstrating that transformation can work. Through recycling and
using renewable energy under cooperative control, we can provide a similar
demonstration of what is possible, as well as having a direct effect on climate
change.

Now, of
course, this does not happen spontaneously and we are back to the discussion
about the type of party that is required, that can facilitate socialist
leadership within the ‘terrains’ of struggle. Hilary Wainwright talks about
networks and new forms of communication, but she also points to Syriza in
Greece and in great depth explains how they are in fact providing leadership
both in terms of representative politics and work with prefigurative
organisations. That is where I agree entirely. I talk about Syriza’s earlier
work in my papers. At the moment, it seems that Syriza is not only showing us
how to fight back within a traditional context but also on the ground, in terms
of collective mobilisation and prefigurative organisations. They are very brave
and it may come unstuck, but at the moment they offer us the best example of a
successful socialist organisation seeking transformative change whilst at the
same time being rigorously internationalist in argument and practice. Can we do
this in the UK?

Thursday, November 8, 2012

The
views expressed in this email and blog are those of the individuals whose name
is attached to the posting. They do not represent a collective position of the
WLG or the Labour Party

Dear
Comrades

This week’s
email and blog follows on from our Welsh Labour Grassroots AGM which was held
last Saturday 27 October. A report of that meeting has already been circulated
and can be accessed on our blog. At the end of the report are the
resolutions that were agreed, together with an updated statement of principles
and priorities for WLG.

On 25th
October, Compass held a meeting in Cardiff that was primarily aimed at starting
a left of centre debate about an alternative plan B for Wales. Compass has also
produced a report of their meeting which is available here. This week’s discussion piece was stimulated
by thoughts emanating from both events, which as usual is at the end of this
email and has been posted to our blog.

Forthcoming events

Labour
Representation Committee annual conference in London this Saturday, 10th
November – all the details and online registration here.

On Saturday, 17th November, the Socialist Educational Association and
other progressive educational campaign groups are holding a conference in
London called ‘Picking up the Pieces after Gove’, 9.45 am – 4.00pm at Camden
Centre, Camden Town Hall, Judd Street, London WC1H 9JE.

Cardiff
Trades Council is organising a meeting as a follow up to the TUC demonstration
on how to come together to fight the politics and policies of austerity. This
takes place at 6.30 pm on Monday 19 November at the Holiday Inn, Castle St
Cardiff. Here is the Facebook link with the
details and facility to indicate that you are coming.

The next WLG
meeting will take place on Saturday 1st December at Swansea Civic Centre
(11.00am-1.00 pm) with Mark Seddon as guest speaker.

Left Week – Len Arthur

Silence has
been a recurrent theme over the last week or so. Silence about how cyclone
Sandy bought devastation to the Caribbean, especially Cuba, Haiti and Jamaica (the latter report coming from the
Hindi Times!) The other silence has been from the left about the Tories defeat
in the Commons over Europe.

In the last bulletin,
I suggested that the Parliamentary Labour Party should move a vote of
confidence in the government and thought it might bring forward the accusation
of being utopian. Lo and behold, the PLP has subsequently decided to organise a
Commons defeat over payments to the EU. Not so utopian, but what dangerous
issues. Tactically planting your tanks on the opposition’s lawn may make for
good parliamentary fun, but lining them up with right-wing Tories and jingoists
on two key issues: public spending cuts and the EU, should send political
shivers down the spine of every socialist.

At first
sight it may seem wonderful to see the Tories defeated – hence, presumably, the
silence from some of the left (however, not all) – but attacking on these two issues
undermines what we are fighting against daily: cuts and nationalism. Where we
need to be is not lined up with the Tory right, but with workers who are
fighting back across Europe; we should be preparing common ground by fighting
ourselves; organising what we can for the ETUC
day of action on 14
November – see also the PCS statement; and getting as many comrades as
possible along to Cardiff TUC meeting on the 19th.

What should
we be supporting? Well the European Left position is a good start and the
Marxists economist Michael Roberts again repeated this week a strong European socialist case. So
– yes please, PLP, move a vote of no confidence in the Tories that we can all
mobilise around: one that directly attacks the Tories’ ‘scorched earth’ polices
on everything the working class has fought for and holds dear.

Left roundup

Labour
Representation Committee (LRC) hold their (our) annual conference in London this Saturday, 10th November,
and the link provides details of registration and motions. The LRC have also
produced an analysis of left motions that were passed at the Labour Party
conference. It is interesting how we have to dig around behind all
grandstanding of the speeches to find out what happened at the real business of
the conference.

Here is something called the Welfare News Service which brings
together some frightening information about the numbers of families and what
areas will be hit by the next stage of benefits cuts in April 2013. We need to
dig into this information and identify what is going to happen in Wales and in
our local areas, so we can start to mobilise those affected and who wish to
fight. A good example is the ‘We are the poor’ meeting in Cardiff that was held on
2 November.

Internationally,
the miners’ strikes in South Africa are reaching a critical stage – one of the
miners’ leaders spoke in Cardiff last night and this Facebook page for the event also gives details of how to give
financial support. In Europe, the rise of the fascists in Greece is a concern
for us all as our own poor political judgement could allow this to happen: a fightback is possible. Links, the international journal of socialist
renewal, can be followed through their website or through Facebook and has a sister
called the Green Left Weekly. Their political approach is similar
to that of Red Pepper and it is stimulating to read articles where just reading
the ‘position’ statement in the last paragraph is not sufficient – if you know
what I mean!

Finally,
although it is too late to attend, Llafur, which used to be the Welsh Labour History Society, had its AGM a few
weeks ago, but the speaker list is useful as it indicates some of
the more recent Welsh labour history research.

The Welsh Labour website is here. Stephen
Doughty’s campaign in
Cardiff South & Penarth is looking for support and the Police Commissioner
elections draw near. Additional leverage for economic growth in Wales was Jane
Hutt’s verdict on the in principle agreement for Wales to receive capital borrowing powers.

Mark
Drakeford AM addressed the recent Welsh Labour Grassroots (WLG) conference on
the theme of ‘Austerity and Public Services’. Two days earlier, he’d covered
similar ground in a Compass Cymru meeting that sought to identify a ‘Plan B for
Wales’. On both occasions, Mark spoke as eloquently as ever; he demonstrated
the same concern for the vulnerable, the same passionate commitment to social
justice, that we’ve come to expect from him. And at the WLG meeting, in
particular, he set out some stimulating ideas about the vision for public
services that the left should seek to develop.

Yet several
of us who heard him were struck by the downbeat tone that Mark adopted when he
spoke about the current situation, suggesting that austerity was a fact of
life, at least for the next few years, and that a degree of mitigation was all
we could reasonably expect from elected Labour politicians. Those who attended
our 2010 conference, only six months after the coalition had taken office,
might recall Mark taking a rather more defiant tone on that occasion, as he
comprehensively demolished the ‘rationale’ behind the cuts and demanded an
alternative. I know I’m not alone in wishing that Mark’s continuing outrage at
the Con-Dems’ savagery were still matched by the determination to take them on
that he demonstrated two years ago.

Now, it is
only with great reluctance that I dissent publicly from Mark’s assessment of
the prospects for a practicable alternative to austerity. And I say that not
just in deference to his formidable intellect but because of the great debt
that we owe Mark. He, more than anyone, deserves credit for the preservation,
in Wales, of a public service model consistent with the vision of Beveridge and
Bevan; for our exemption from the Washington Consensus (privatisation, deregulation,
markets and ‘choice’); and for the revival of a commitment to equality of
outcome. But all Welsh Labour’s positive achievements are now jeopardised by
the Tories’ determination to impose punitive cuts on those least able to bear
them. Socialists cannot simply allow this to happen, offering only modest
ameliorative measures.

To call for
a more determined response than that offered by Mark is not to suggest any lack
of political commitment or intellectual vigour on his part, or that of his
Assembly Labour comrades. It is to recognise that even the best of our elected
representatives are constrained by a governmental apparatus designed to inhibit
radical change. Having accepted the responsibilities of office, even the most
zealous reformers can find their horizons limited to what may be possible under
current arrangements. Welsh Labour’s record shows how much good can
nevertheless be done by a government that is committed to the interests of
working people and the poor. But current circumstances demonstrate the limits
of its modus operandi.

First of
all, there are the very real constraints imposed by the constitutional
settlement – which lend some weight to Mark’s short-term pessimism. The Welsh
Government just doesn’t have the means at its disposal to compensate for cuts
imposed by Westminster. Notwithstanding the recent vague commitment in
principle to give Wales borrowing powers for infrastructure projects, it can
currently neither borrow money nor raise taxes and it has no means to build up
financial reserves in good times that could be deployed when money is short.
There is little scope for intervention in the Welsh economy, given that most of
the policy levers remain with Westminster. Mark Drakeford has certainly been
energetic in pursuing all the possibilities that may exist to generate funds –
whether it be a Welsh version of the Quebec Solidarity Fund, or the use of
social impact bonds.But such
innovations are unlikely to make a significant impact in the short-to-medium
term. In the long run, Welsh Labour should at least take a less equivocal
stance in support of tax-raising, as well as borrowing, powers – the Assembly
could do with whatever enhanced financial autonomy may be on offer. For now,
though, its options – as Mark recognises – are seriously limited. The question
is, whether Welsh Labour can offer effective political opposition to the Con-Dem onslaught, even it lacks the
financial resources to nullify the impact of the cuts in Wales.

Mark’s
candid, if grim, prognosis that we’re stuck with austerity for the time being
differs from the brave face adopted by most Welsh Labour AMs, who tend to want
to emphasise what they can, not what
they cannot, do. This reflects more than just an understandable reluctance to
acknowledge weakness; it is also a matter of the credibility of the devolution
project itself. Each step forward (1997, 1999, 2006, 2011) has been presented
as a historic achievement, opening up new vistas of possibility; to admit that
devolution has not yet conferred the means to neutralise a Westminster cuts
programme might (for some people) call into question the value of the whole
enterprise. So, Welsh ministers tend, as the old song goes, to accentuate the
positive. The problem with this is that it risks raising expectations that cannot
be fulfilled. It would surely be better to admit that the Welsh Government’s
ability to defend the people of Wales from austerity is strictly limited and
that our best hope of minimising the harm represented by the Con-Dem cuts is
through mass pressure on the UK government for a change of course. But this
leads on to another, and more fundamental, set of problems with Welsh Labour’s
politics.

Welsh Labour
is limited, I would argue, by a narrow conception of political action and
leadership, focused exclusively on the formal channels of electoral and
parliamentary politics. To this extent, it follows the liberal schema, which
sees the ultimate prize in politics as the attainment of governmental office:
winning an election confers the right to carry out the party’s manifesto
commitments and thereby deliver the goods for ‘our’ people. But office is not
the same thing as power –as some of the more radical past Labour ministers,
like Tony Benn, have learnt through bitter experience. The power of the dominant
class in advanced capitalist countries like Britain is exercised through
numerous spheres of influence (e.g. the financial markets, the media, the
senior civil service), which together constrain the ability of governments to
bring about meaningful, lasting change. To recognise this is to conclude that,
if we are to move society in a socialist direction, we must be prepared to
challenge capitalist power on several fronts, employing a variety of tactics
(this is what the Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci, called the ‘war of
position’ – as opposed to the more direct ‘war of manoeuvre’, typified by the
Bolshevik Revolution).

Thus,
industrial action, mass protest and the development of new forms of grassroots
democracy have an important part to play, alongside participation in the
structures of formal politics. And when socialists win elected office, they
should take the opportunity not just to implement progressive policies but to
transform the structures of government themselves, opening them up to popular
involvement (Len talked about this in last week’s bulletin/blog). The best example of this in
Britain was provided by Ken Livingstone’s GLC in the 1980s: ordinary Londoners
and community organisations were given an unprecedented opportunity to help
formulate and deliver the council’s policies – an experiment deemed so
dangerous that it hastened the demise of the GLC at the hands of the Thatcher
government. The GLC was, however, very much the exception to the normal
practice of Labour administrations. As Ralph Miliband (the late father of Ed
and David) argued in his classic book, Parliamentary
Socialism:

‘Of political parties claiming socialism to be their aim, the
Labour Party has always been one of the most dogmatic – not about socialism but
about the parliamentary system. Empirical and flexible about all else, its
leaders have always … rejected any kind of action (such as industrial action
for political purposes) which fell, or which appeared to them to fall, outside
the framework and conceptions of the parliamentary system.’

This is
adhered to even more rigidly today, albeit without even a formal commitment to
socialism (beyond passing reference in the revised clause 4). And Welsh Labour
in the Assembly has, for the most part, proven no exception to this general
rule (although it at least provided some practical solidarity when its own
staff were striking against UK government policies – shelving Assembly business
that would have required crossing picket-lines). The limits of conventional,
‘top-down’ governance may not have appeared too problematic when the Assembly
was receiving sufficient funding to facilitate improvements in the scope,
quality and accessibility of Welsh public services. But the savage budget cuts
imposed by the Con-Dems have exposed the Welsh Government’s weak position, as a
subordinate administration, lacking any financial independence and dependent on
the grudging support of the UK government.

It is a
reflection of Welsh Labour’s conventional, parliamentarist approach to
political leadership that its ministers, having initially registered their
disapproval of the cuts imposed by Osborne, have eschewed any further public
opposition, instead relying on negotiation with Westminster to secure
improvements in the financial situation. Without wishing to slight the
undoubted cogency and tenacity with which Jane Hutt and her colleagues have
been fighting Wales’ corner in such talks, it is hard to believe that any
meaningful concessions may be wrung from a government so resistant to reason
and compassion as the Westminster coalition. The recent joint statement on
borrowing powers was presented as a significant step forward but it is so vague,
and hedged about so much with conditions and non-committal language, as to
appear virtually worthless. And all the while, the need to keep open the
diplomatic channels between Cardiff and London inhibits Welsh ministers from
condemning the coalition’s actions with the moral outrage appropriate to the
situation – and, crucially, from rallying the opposition. There would seem
little to lose, and everything to gain, from Welsh Labour taking a more
confrontational approach vis-a-vis the UK government. It needs to assume the
leadership of the anti-cuts movement in Wales, making clear that it is on the
side of those whose wellbeing is under attack, rather than allowing anyone to
imagine that the values and objectives of the two governments are in any way
compatible.

So what,
practically, can Welsh Labour do? Certainly, it should actively encourage trade
union resistance to the cuts, offering unequivocal support in the event of
further strike action over job cuts, pay restraint and/or attacks on pension
rights. It should be made clear that the two wings of the labour movement are
divided only functionally, not politically. The Wales TUC is committed – as of
its conference last May – to organising a demonstration against austerity in
Wales but, typically, is dragging its feet in implementing this decision. The
Welsh Labour leadership should actively push for this demonstration to be
organised as soon as practicable, should ensure that it is well-represented on
the platform and should mobilise party members to attend. In fact, it should
use every available platform to proclaim its opposition to the UK government’s
programme and the need for resistance. When the GLC was threatened with
abolition, it took out full-page newspaper adverts defending its record and
opposing the Thatcher government’s attack on local democracy. The Welsh Labour
leadership could do likewise to publicise the manner in which Welsh public
services are being starved of funds by Westminster and to make the case for an
alternative (if doing this in the name of the Welsh Government would seem to
invite criticism for misuse of its dwindling resources, then the Assembly
Labour Group could surely pay for such a campaign itself). Today, of course,
the internet provides a much wider range of opportunities for making
propaganda, which should be exploited to the full.

More than
that, the Welsh party could take the responsibility for co-ordinating the
response to the cuts by Labour councillors, affiliated trade unionists and
party activists. It could organise a special conference to examine the
situation in detail, facilitate discussion and mutual support, and attempt to
hammer out a collective position. In fact, this is something that WLG members
might want to propose, in the form of a contemporary motion, to Welsh Labour
conference in March. This leads me to another important point: most of the
comments I have made above are directed towards the views and actions of Welsh
Labour ministers, AMs and the party leadership in Wales – but all of us within
Welsh Labour (WLG members included) should accept some responsibility for any
weaknesses in the party’s political approach. If our leadership’s public
opposition to the UK government is not sufficiently robust, then we must take
the initiative and push for a tougher approach. The Welsh Labour left has, over
the last few years, been in the fortunate position of having a leadership whose
actions have broadly reflected our own beliefs and policy preferences.
Consequently, we’ve tended to step back and let them get on with it, offering
only occasional muted criticism when we’ve disagreed with their approach. The
stakes are now much higher, of course, and we need to up our game accordingly.

Finally,
there is a particularly important role in all this for left-wing Labour councillors
– of which there are now, happily, far more in Wales than before 3rd May. The
useful panel discussion at the WLG conference highlighted the formidable
challenges with which they have to contend. No-one should imagine that there
are easy answers to the problems posed by austerity – we should reject the
facile posturing of those on the far left who suggest that any councillor who
votes to cut anything at all is a class traitor. But socialists in elected
office must do more than go along with the path of least resistance, as
recommended by Group leaders and chief officers. There should be no assumption
that services must be cut back in proportion to the reduction in a council’s
revenue support grant. Left councillors should demand that all other options –
such as spending reserves, making use of borrowing powers and raising council
tax by the maximum amount permissible (legally and politically) – are deployed
before cuts are implemented that will adversely affect the wellbeing of
ordinary people. These are discussions that socialist should undertake in
collaboration with comrades elsewhere in Wales (and further afield) and efforts
are now underway to facilitate those discussions within WLG. These are
challenging times and we, as a left, must rise to the challenge.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Forty WLG members attended our annual conference and AGM in Cardiff last
Saturday. Mark Drakeford began the day, addressing the theme of 'Austerity &
Public Services' by setting out some thoughts as to what the left's alternative
vision for public services might look like. Mark explored issues like
co-production, pre-distribution, localism, social protection and equality in the
course of a typically stimulating address, which kicked off a lively debate.

Next, a panel of WLG members who sit on Welsh councils shared their
experiences and their perspectives on the problems of austerity. Siobhan Corria
(Cardiff), Gareth Phillips (Bridgend) and Jessica Powell (Torfaen) are all new
councillors - as is Nick Davies (Swansea), who chaired the session - while Mark
Whitcutt (Newport) is a more experienced councillor and, as of May, a cabinet
member. They talked, variously, about the challenges of defending their
communities, protecting jobs and services, avoiding outsourcing and overcoming
democratic deficits. The ensuing discussion focussed particularly on how
socialist councillors in different authorities could work together, learn from
each others' experience and develop a common approach to the cuts.

After
lunch, Cllr. Julia Magill, Cardiff cabinet member for education, was the guest
speaker for a joint session with the Socialist Educational Association. Julia
answered questions on a number of issues - notably, the balance between enabling
parental choice and upholding catchment areas to support neighbourhood
schools.

For those who
weren't able to attend Saturday's meeting, please renew your membership a.s.a.p.
(unless you already have a standing order) by sending a cheque for £10/£5 to me
at 33 Lansdowne Road, Cardiff CF5 1PQ - or email me about setting up a standing
order.

RESOLUTIONS CARRIED AT THE WELSH LABOUR
GRASSROOTS 2012 AGM

RESOLUTION
1

This AGM:

·notes
that, although the WLG constitution and rules states that membership fees ‘will be reviewed at each Annual General Meeting’, the
annual rates of £5 (waged) and £3 (unwaged/low-waged) have remained unchanged
since WLG was formally launched in 2004;

·recognises that the cost of running a growing, all-Wales
organisation, along with the cumulative effects of inflation over the last
eight years, mean that these rates now provide insufficient income to guarantee
the financial stability of the group.

This AGM therefore agrees:

·that annual membership rates should be increased, with immediate
effect, to £10 (waged) and £5 (unwaged/low-waged); and

·that all WLG members should regard payment of membership fees as a
basic political responsibility and that those who persistently fail to keep up
their payments will be regarded as having lapsed.

RESOLUTION 2

This
WLG AGM:1) recognises the Labour Representation
Committee as a key body in the LP where socialists organise and an important
site in the struggle for working class solidarity across Britain;2) notes that WLG is an affiliate of the LRC
with the right to send delegates to its AGM and to submit resolutions and
nominations to its national committee and to the editorial board of its
journal, Labour Briefing;3) resolves to co-ordinate the timing of
future WLG AGMs so as to facilitate the submission of resolutions and
nominations to the LRC AGM.

RESOLUTION 3

This AGM:

·notes, with grave concern, the recent Cardiff Council cabinet paper
considering new ways of providing council services, which identified
outsourcing to the private sector as an option, despite the lack of any reference
to outsourcing in the Cardiff Labour manifesto or the preceding policy process;

·believes that the very inclusion of this as an option risks
alienating staff, undermining the critical relationship with trade
unions and diminishing the prospects of achieving the required service
improvements and efficiencies;

·therefore agrees that privatisation must be ruled out, in favour
of applying the Welsh Government policy of pursuing collaboration between authorities,
at regional and national level, as set out in the Local Government Minister’s
‘Collaborative Footprint’ document, to achieve critical mass within the public
sector;

·calls on WLG members who sit on Cardiff Council to work with trade
unions and party activists to prevent the adoption of outsourcing, and on WLG
members on other Welsh councils to take a similarly robust position in response
to any privatisation proposals that may arise elsewhere;

·values the breadth and diversity of opinion and
experience within WLG but also recognises the need for a common understanding
of our political orientation and objectives as an organisation;

·therefore agrees to adopt the statement of
Principles and Priorities that has been circulated and discussed in recent
months, as now amended, as a restatement of the basic political line that we
have developed over the course of previous AGMs and an attempt to guide our
work over the longer term (while recognising that many of the details may be
overtaken by events).

WELSH
LABOUR GRASSROOTS PRINCIPLES & PRIORITIES

We
are socialists in the Labour Party

§We do not accept
that there is anything ‘natural’ or ‘inevitable’ about the injustice,
insecurity and exploitation that characterise free-market capitalism.

§We believe in the
possibility of an alternative way of organising society that is more equal,
democratic and sustainable, where the economy is driven by need, not profit,
and people have control over own lives.

§While we are ready
to build alliances with socialists and progressives in other parties, and in no
party, we are committed to working within Labour, as the only party potentially
capable of representing the interests of ordinary people at the level of
(British) government.

Labour
government – at all levels – should be about transformation, not management

§Winning elections
is only ever a means to an end, not an end in itself.

§Among other
things, transformation should be about ensuring that our representatives
reflect all sections of society and that women and ethnic minorities are not
sidelined.

§The worst Labour
government is better than the best Tory government – but a Labour government
that simply wants its turn to operate the status quo is hardly worth having.

§Our responsibility
is to do more than get Labour candidates elected and to defend their actions
afterwards – we should scrutinise their work, hold them to account and actively
lobby for the policies we think they should be carry out, as well as for
greater openness and engagement with citizens.

§As an organised
left, we have to challenge those in Labour who subordinate social and political
change to electoral expediency, or who deny the need for change altogether.

Austerity
isn’t working anywhere

§Cuts are a
political choice, not an economic necessity.

§Political and
economic elites are applying the ‘shock doctrine’ – using the crisis to
restructure their economies and societies in the interests of the rich.

§The injustice of
the cuts is exacerbated by the fact that they are falling disproportionately on
women, Black people and the disabled.

§Official Labour
policy can be characterised as ‘austerity lite’ and represents an inadequate
response to Con-Dem policies.

§Credible
alternative policies have been persuasively set out by trade unions, by Compass,
by Mark Drakeford and others; we should do more to publicise and argue for
these alternatives and to contribute our own ideas.

§The anti-cuts
movement needs a principled but constructive voice, which we could help to
provide.

Our
allegiance is to working people, the poor and the oppressed everywhere

§We stand for international solidarity, not putting
Britain (or Wales) first – although our efforts are centred in Wales, where our
political roots lie.

§We have a duty to
defend those scapegoated by the right for the economic crisis – benefit
claimants, economic migrants, asylum seekers – as well as those threatened by
reactionary policies because of their gender, ethnicity, nationality, faith,
sexuality or disability.

§We should promote
– and, where possible, organise – practical solidarity with people in Greece
and elsewhere, who have been hardest hit by austerity.

§We must continue
to oppose imperialist military, economic and diplomatic policies – including
the possibility of further wars in the Middle East – and support climate
justice and debt cancellation.

Thanks
to democratic devolution, and our political traditions, Wales has something
worth defending

§Welsh Labour’s
record of strengthening public services and advancing equality is an example to
promote at a British level.

§We have to defend Welsh
Labour’s achievements from austerity and from ‘innovations’ that risk undoing
the good that has been done.

We’ll
never have socialism without democracy

§Labour hasn’t
broken the anti-democratic habits it acquired over the past two decades.

§Despite the warm
words about accountability from the present leadership, there has been
virtually no appreciable change in the ‘Partnership in Power’ regime; to this
end, we defend party democracy, open policy debate and accountability at all
levels.

§We still have
control-freakery over candidate selections – along with inadequate measures to
ensure the selection of women and ethnic minority candidates – and
accountability has been further weakened by the abolition of county parties.

§Trade unions are
potentially an important part of the alliance to secure greater democracy – but
they can also be part of the problem, with most of them needing democratic
reform too.